A MULTIROTOR OR MULTICOPTER IS A ROTORCRAFT WITH MORE THAN TWO ROTORS. AN ADVANTAGE OF MULTIROTOR AIRCRAFT IS THE SIMPLERROTOR MECHANICS REQUIRED FOR FLIGHT CONTROL. BECAUSE OF THEIR HELICOPTER LIKEFLIGHT CHARACTERISTICS, MULTI-COPTERS OFFER A TOTALLY DIFFERENT EXPERIENCE TOPLANES. UNLIKE SINGLE- AND DOUBLE-ROTOR HELICOPTERS WHICH USE COMPLEX VARIABLEPITCH ROTORS WHOSE PITCH VARIES AS THE BLADE ROTATES FOR FLIGHT STABILITY ANDCONTROL, MULTIROTORS OFTEN USE FIXED-PITCH BLADES; CONTROL OF VEHICLE MOTION ISACHIEVED BY VARYING THE RELATIVE SPEED OF EACH ROTOR TO CHANGE THE THRUST AND TORQUE PRODUCED BY EACH.

The ability to slowly approach a subject,hold its position and turn on its own axis opens the airframes up to lots ofcircumstances a plane can not cater for. If you have not flown a helicopter orplane before it is probably the hardest of all disciplines to learn as abeginner. Multicopters are very varied in build, configuration and control.

Due to their ease of both construction andcontrol, multirotor aircraft are frequently used in model and radio control aircraft projects in which the names quadcopter, hexacopter and octocopterarefrequently used to refer to 4-, 6- and 8-rotor helicopters, respectively.

The Quad Copters are extremely popular. It is a multirotor helicopter that is lifted and propelled by four rotors. Quadcopters are classified asrotorcraft, as opposed to fixed-wing aircraft, because their lift is generatedby a set of rotors (vertically oriented propellers).

With 4 legs as the name suggests they require no yaw mechanism. They are available in two layouts a + configurationwith the front leading leg being straight ahead, or the much more popular andFPV friendly X configuration with the two leading legs being 45 degrees to theleft and right of the front of the platform. The platform is very stable whensetup well, it can be very acrobatic too compared to the Tri Copter. Becauseits symmetrical most pilots have different coloured front legs to back to aid orientation.It is very good at carrying a decent amount of payload, and flight times can be15 mins + at times, but 6 – 10 normally depending on weight, motor and propchoice.

Unlike most helicopters, quadcopters use 2sets of identical fixed pitched propellers; 2 clockwise (CW) and 2counter-clockwise (CCW). These use variation of RPM to control lift and torque.Control of vehicle motion is achieved by altering the rotation rate of one ormore rotor discs, thereby changing its torque load and thrust/lift characteristics.

Generally the more rotors, the more motors,the more stable and the more you can carry in weight.

For the first time, hobby drones, or FPV planes, are among the top autofill responses when users type “I want to buy” on the Google search bar, joining regulars such as “house,” “car,” and “stock” in the top four.

If you are planning to purchase a hobby drone as a gift this year without breaking the bank, we’d like recommend six most popular multirotors under $200 in the market for you:

Rolling Spider

rolling-spider

Selling Price: $100.00

Parrot Rolling Spider is an ultra-compact drone controlled by smartphone. It flies indoors and outdoors with surprising speed and stability. Rolling Spider has folloing features:

Ultra-light, Rolling Spider performs half- and u-turns in one swipe.

He does ​​front and rear loops in one click.

With its removable wheels, it runs from floor to ceiling and walls.

Equiped with a propellers cutout in case of a collision, it is designed to fly without harming living-room’s luminaire!

ZMR250 ARF & RTF Combo

ZMR250 ARF from FPV Model offers ZMR250 FPV RTF combo now. FPV Model will help with the assembly that everything had been tuned (controller,radio,TX etc), you just need connect to your battery then you are ready to fly.

You can now DIY with this ZMR250 ARF combo, or simply use it as RTF. Suits for both FPV starters and advanced users.

Hubsan X4

husban-x4

Selling Price: US$50.00

The Hubsan X4 is sold at a price around $50.00. With the purchase, you’ll get the quadcopter and flight controller. It is a perfect multirotor for FPV starters.

Since the size for Hubsan X4 is quite small and it is very light, it’s not advisable to fly the X4 outside on a windy day, it is a sturdy little drone that is perfectly suited to be flown (and crashed) all over your home or office.

Micro Drone 2.0

micro-drone-20

Micro Drone 2.0 from Extreme Fliers is the next iteration of the hit sensation Quad-copter, currently it’s the ONLY MICRO drone in the world that can carry a camera for videography and photography function.

Micro Drone 2.0 was original sold at a price of US$169.00, now Extreme Fliers has just lowered down the price to £69.99. If you only have a low budget, it is a good choice to own one.

180 QX HD RTF

180 QX HD RTF

The 180 QX HD operates with bank limiting and SAFE™ technology enhanced self-leveling characteristics. Two Stability modes provide the pilot with a high and low angle setting allowing the quadcopter to be flown smoothly or more aggressively depending on your video needs.

QR W100S

qrw100s

The reviews for Walerka’s QR W100S are sort of a mixed bag. The only feature this model has that the others on this list do not is the ability to stream video from the camera to multiple smartphones.

The thought occurred to me that mounting a video projector to a flying drone could give it unusual capabilities.

My first idea was to use it for special effects at a concert or major indoor event. But a device like this could also be used for spot advertising – creating momentary images on the sidewalk or parking lot; subliminal advertising – suggesting a variety of products or services inside graphic images; emergency rescue – displaying a series of arrows to help someone lost in a forest; or image masking – to disguise someone’s body and facial features to prevent them from being monitored.

This line of thinking started me down several dozen new paths almost instantly.

Drones can be low flying, high flying, tiny or huge, silent or noisy, super-visible or totally invisible, your best friend or your worst enemy.

Simply adding a robotic display will enable us to fly in and have a private video conversation with someone on the other side of the world.

Flying drones can also roll along the ground, stick to the side of a building, float in a river, dive under water, jump onto a building, climb a tree, or attach themselves like parasites to the sides of trains, ships, and airplanes.

One moment they can be hovering in front of you and the next they can fly off at the speed of sound, disappearing into the clouds.

Combining all these capabilities, attributes, and special features into one single device will open up a world of possibilities unlike anything before in all history.

Join me as we step into the magical world ahead being unleashed with this amazing new technology – flying drones.

Introducing the Triple Checkerboard

I’ve developed a brainstorming technique called the “checkerboard” as a way to generate ideas. It’s a very simple idea – start with eight categories and list eight items in each category, enough to fill all 64 spaces on a checkerboard.

But it’s only in my most masochistic moments that I’ve decided to torture myself into coming up with a full triple checkerboard of 192 ideas. This requires a little prep work to get into the mental zone for rapid idea generation.

Naturally, jumping into an epiphany fest like this involves editing out all the goofy ones, and few others too esoteric to be meaningful.

As promised, here are the 24 categories I’ve created, with 8 examples in each category.

Tiny handheld drone

Early Warning Systems – How different would the world be if we had some advance warning that a disaster was about to happen? Each of these will require sensor swarms capable of detecting tiny changes to our atmosphere or surrounding environments.

1. Earthquake Warning Networks

2. Hurricane Monitoring Swarms

3. Tornado Warning Systems

4. Hail Preventer/Sound Cannons

5. Avalanche Preventer/Sound Cannons

6. Impending Flood Alert Systems

7. Tsunami Forecasting Systems

8. Forest Fire Preventers

First responder “get eyes on it” drone

Emergency Services

9. Missing Child Drone – Much like a hunting dog, capable of tracking the smell of the child.

10. Thermo Sensor Drones – For avalanche rescue.

11. Infrared Sensor Drones – For early forest fire detection.

12. Insect Killing Drones – Kill the insects before they kill you.

13. Poacher Drones – Tracking animals in danger of being poached.

14. Endangered Species Drone – Signals whenever an endangered species is in danger.

15. Eyes on the Problem Drone – Whenever a city receives word that there is a problem, their first response will be to send up a drone to “get eyes on it.”

16. Missing Pet Drone – Many will pay dearly to find a missing pet.

Channel 5 News with drone coverage

News Reporting

17. Accident/Incident Monitoring – High altitude monitors search for whenever a series of elevated heart rates show up, and drone will instantly zoom in for a closer look, alerting those monitoring the feed. Once an accident or incident has been detected, a series of other drones will be called in to record the entire event.

18. Time-Lapse Weather Drones – Capturing the big picture over an extended period of time from virtually any angle.

Farming and Agriculture – As the cost of operating drones drops, they will reach a point of efficiency where it becomes profitable to have a micro drone pick and transport a single kernel of wheat 1,000 miles to its final destination.

101. Home Security Drones – Whether the threat is coming from the sky or on the ground, these drones will spot the problem, alert the owners, alert authorities, and rain fire and brimstone down on any intruders.

102. 3D Printer Repair Drone – Whenever a crack or damage occurs, the 3D printer drone will fly in and print a perfect patch every time.

103. Special Drone Docks – To allow 24-7 drone deliveries, and to alert you when they arrive.

104. Diaper Changing Drones – I have no idea how this one will work, but once perfected, the demand will be off the charts.

117. Tech Lending Library – If you find an old Commodore 64 disc or Atari Space Invaders cartridge and want to have a retro weekend, just borrow one of the original computers or game consoles to make it happen.

118. Borrow an Expert Library – Flying video screen with a live connection so you can have a brief conversation with an expert who can answer your questions.

119. Borrow a Big Brother – Companionship with a drone chaperone.

120. Drone Lending Library – Borrow a drone. It will come to you.

Titan Aerospace solar powered WiFi drone!

Military and Spy Uses – In 2010 the U.S. Military spent $4.5 billion on drones. By 2018, that number is expected to reach $18.7 billion.

127. Heat Seeking Bullet Drone – Perhaps the most dangerous weapon ever to be invented, this bullet-size drone can be shot from thousands of miles away at a specific target, and never miss.

128. Solar Powered High-Altitude WiFi Drones – In March 2014, Facebook purchased Ascenta, a solar-powered drone company based in the UK. Facebook intends to use the high-altitude flyers as part of a network of linked satellites, drones and lasers that can beam Internet to remote communities from the sky. In April 2014, Google purchased its own solar-powered drone company: Titan Aerospace. The company designs ultra-lightweight, solar-powered planes that fly high above commercial air traffic and can remain aloft for up to five years.

Healthcare Drones

129. Humanitarian Applications – Researchers at the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology are developing drones that can deliver vaccines and other critical medical supplies to remote locations in the developing world.

130. Canary Drones – Test out air quality inside mines and other questionable air environments.

140. The Question & Answer Drone – Wherever you walk, this drone will pose a constant series of questions to challenge your understanding of the world around you. Correct answers will be given after three attempts.

141. Documentary Drones – Film and motion picture companies using drones for aerial footage, because drones are quieter and don’t vibrate as much as helicopters.

145. Archeology – A team of archaeologists uncovered structures thought to be from an ancient Native American village in New Mexico using drones equipped with heat-sensing cameras. The thermal images enabled the researchers to see beneath the desert floor, which helped them locate the buried structures.

151. Solar Flare Monitoring – Using a diverse pattern of solar-watching drones, scientists will be able to do real time monitoring of all solar activity with far greater precision than anything used today.

152. Earth Noise Monitoring – Establishing a wide configuration of listening posts throughout the atmosphere to listen to the shifting noise patterns of the earth itself.

176. Voices in Our Head Drones – Silent invisible drone that talks to us. With a little voodoo programming the voice can sound exactly like a person’s own voice. Bad guys and terrorists can be influenced and maybe even grow a conscious without ever knowing they’re being externally manipulated.

Periscope drone, capable of seeing far beyond what’s on the ground

Novelty Drones

177. Personal Periscopes – Want to see over a tall building? No problem, and you can even view the image on your smartphone.

178. Plant Communicator Drones – If we listen closely, every plant is speaking to us.

186. Artificial Earthworms – Microbe-sized swarmbots can be built to “chew their way through” landfills and fields of toxic material as a way of improving the rate of decomposition and lowing toxicity levels.

187. Personal Prep Swarms – Once we step out of the shower in the morning, the swarmbots will dry our skin, fix our hair, and take their place as part of our ever-changing wardrobe.

189. Protective Swarms – Flying swarmbots will be capable of forming shields to protect people from too much sun, too much wind, and even temperature extremes. In personal confrontations, swarmbots will form a protective shield around people, keeping them safe.

190. Mental Conduit Swarms – Swarmbots will serve as an information conduit for our minds, forming antennae to capture wireless transmissions, forming an information-processing array for the data, floating visual displays that only we can see.

191. Remote Viewing Swarms – Remote viewing from anywhere, at any time, from any angle, will be possible as the swarm moves into whatever position we ask it to. This “eye in the sky” can range from several miles across on one extreme to a micrometer across on the other.

192. Superman Swarm – With flying swarms that serve as our clothing, the next step will be for them to evolve into an exoskeleton of sorts for physical enhancement. Flying swarms will give of superhuman strength, superhuman durability, and even the ability to fly.

Final Thoughts

The purpose of composing this rather exhaustive list is not an attempt to cover everything, but rather to show the enormous versatility of this platform.

The complete list of will easily include over 10,000 listings.

Some may think that drones will become the most annoying devices on earth. In many cases that might be true.

Without the proper protections, drones can be dangerous. The same drones that deliver food and water can also deliver bombs and poison. We may very well have drones watching the workers who watch the drones, and even that may not be enough.

Eventually we’ll find the positive uses far outweigh the negative ones, and we’ll develop the right systems to make it all workable.

As we go down this path, we’ll also be unleashing millions of new startups that are destined to drive the economy for decades, if not centuries, to come.

The retail world is coming upon its most lucrative time of the year: the holiday season. But move aside Disney Frozen Elsa dolls, you have a competitor.

For the first time, drones, or FPV planes, are among the top autofill responses when users type “I want to buy” on the Google search bar, joining regulars such as “house,” “car,” and “stock” and replacing the word “gun” in the top four.

This comes from a report on off-the-grid economic indicators compiled by New York-based brokerage ConvergEx Group, which keeps quarterly tabs on Google Trends data.

The analysis speaks to a growing market for consumer drones, which appear to be joining the ranks in popularity of consumer tech devices such as GoPro —only with the ability to fly up to 400 feet above the Earth and stream dizzying videos to smartphones in real time.

French manufacturer Parrot SA which is among the three largest consumer drone companies in the world, said drone sales this year are up three times over 2013, led by its lower-tier Mini Drone, which retails for $100. Parrot expects sales to triple again in 2015.

“The growth for us has been significant,” said Peter George, Parrot’s vice president of sales for North America, adding that demand has spiked recently amid the approaching holiday season and loosening regulations on commercial drone use.

Parrot raked in 42.1 million euros ($53.35 million) from drones in fiscal 2013, comprising some 18% of Parrot’s total revenues of 235.1 million euros last year, according to filings.

The other two major drone makers, DJI Innovations and 3D Robotics, are privately held. But some data point to DJI generating revenues of around $131 million in 2013, while 3D Robotics raised more than $30 million in venture capital last year and is said to have sold more than 30,000 units by midyear.

And even as consumers are looking at drones as potential Christmas gifts, commercial uses are expanding.

“A year ago people didn’t even know drones were used by the military,” said Nicholas Colas, ConvergEx chief market strategist. “To have a drone break in [and now be considered a consumer device, is fascinating.”

Part of the meteoric rise is the fact that nonmilitary drones are being developed for a wide range of applications, thanks in part to loosened regulations by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration regarding unmanned aircraft. Commercial drones are now being designed to do anything from mapping national parks and monitoring traffic to locating people during emergencies.

Just law week the FAA gave the green light for six movie studios to fly unmanned aircraft for films and television shows. It said it was considering dozens of other requests from commercial companies, including Amazon.com, which is seeking approval for an all-drone delivery service, Amazon PrimeAir.

Silicon Valley heavyweights have joined the chorus in recent months, with Facebook Inc. buying U.K.-based drone company Ascenta, which makes long-lasting solar-powered drones, in March. In April, Google scooped up high-altitude drone maker Titan, just four months after buying robotics maker Boston Dynamics.

Parrot will unleash its highest-end consumer drone, called the Bebop, in November, expected to retail around $500.

Bebop will be adorned with a high-definition, 15-megapixel, fisheye camera—as good as any in GoPro’s Hero camera line.

Parrot said it has already been contacted by Walt Disney Co.’s Pixar and Warner Bros. Entertainment TWX,about using its drones to film movies.